With Silent Screams (14 page)

CHAPTER
16

T
he fact that Simon had been removing tattoos, and only taking those sporting them, was something that was still bouncing around my brain when I finally managed to fall asleep later that night. Galahad had assured me that he would get to the bottom of whatever Simon was after, and it was no longer my job to worry. But even so, something bothered me and at the time of 2:34
AM
, I decided to go for a walk to clear my head.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one, as I bumped into Bill only a few minutes later.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked and sat on a park bench.

I shook my head and sat beside him. “Something is bothering me about all of this. I can’t figure out what it is. But it was all too easy.”

“That Simon bastard surrendered without a fight. Does that seem normal to you?”

I shook my head. “Apparently we met in Milan a few
hundred
years ago. He didn’t go without a fight then. In fact, he escaped the first chance he got.”

“So, why give up now? Why would anyone want to be captured and taken somewhere where they can have the shit kicked out of them by people looking for answers?”

“That’s a good question.”

I stood up and started walking toward the police station, with Bill beside me.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“When was the last time you spoke to someone in the
station
?”

“A few hours ago, why?”

I didn’t answer; instead, I went into a flat out sprint, leaving Bill far behind as my magic made me much faster than any human could hope to be.

I reached the police stations front door and gave it a push. Locked. A second push was accompanied with a magical blast, which removed not only the lock, but most of one door, which then swung open.

“You armed?” I asked Bill, who’d caught me up.

He drew his revolver and I stepped into the police station. The desk sergeant had been pulled over the desk, where a metal rod had been stabbed through the back of his head, pinning him to the now-red floor. Behind him, three more bodies sat, each of them covered in blood.

I motioned for Bill to open the door to the cells, which we found were also devoid of life. One of the two men I’d seen enter the cells earlier in the day was hanging from one of the cages, metal bars wrapped tightly around his throat while several more had been inserted into his chest and then pulled out of his back. Blood was everywhere, covering every part of the cell.

I turned to talk to Bill, but he’d already ran out of the cell and back through the door to the front of the police station. I followed and found him in the main part of the police station, where we’d first met. Three more bodies lay on the floor, one with gun in hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“These were good people, why’d he do this. Why not j
ust leave?”

“He wants to make a point.”

“But—”

“Oh, shit,” I whispered. “Bill, get Galahad and his people up to where we met the wood trolls. Get them there now.”

“Where are you going?” Bill asked as I grabbed some car keys from the desk beside me.

“Where are the cars kept?”

“It’ll be parked outside. Where are you going?”

“The woods. Simon told me he was going to go kill Rean’s clan. I’m going to go stop him.”

“And if it’s too late, like it was here?”

I didn’t have time to answer, as I was already running back toward the front exit, and a few seconds later I’d found the right police cruiser and had set off toward the woods.

I parked the car where Bill and I had stopped the previous day and began running through the woods, using my night vision to avoid branches and trip hazards. I didn’t find anything wrong until I reached the stream. There were bodies, half in the water, and another two on the boulders, which were covered in dozens of sharp, foot-long rock blades. I stopped by the three bodies in the water and found that they were a mother and two of the
adolescent
wood trolls. They’d probably been ambushed by Simon.

I crossed the stream and continued to run in the direction of the muffled cries I heard from further in the woods. It didn’t take log before I found more dead wood trolls. Two men were couched over one of them, laughing as they stabbed the troll over and over. I didn’t even stop sprinting as I buried a blade of fire in the neck of the man closest to me. The second man turned toward me and caught the same blade between his eyes, almost cutting off the top of his head. I left them both to die and continued toward the cries, which had turned into louder and louder screams with every step.

As I entered the clearing where Rean and his colony had welcomed Bill and me, all I could see were the bodies of trolls. Most had been torn apart by a bladed weapon, and it didn’t take long for me to find what was responsible.

Simon was couched in front of Rean, who had been tied to a tree, forced to watch as the psychotic madman in front of him butchered his colony. While I couldn’t see the front of him, I could tell that Simon was wearing a gauntlet with a long blade protruding from one end. It was covered in blood, and as I walked toward him I noticed that Rean’s mate and son were already dead.

I stepped on a branch, which broke, causing Simon’s head to snap toward me. He smiled.

“You’re a bit late,” he said and stood, showing me the almost entirely red gauntlet, which stretched up to his elbow. “I took some silver from the police station to make this, it’s quite
effective
.”

I glanced past him at Rean, whose eyes were glazed over, seemingly unable to focus on anything.

“I guess it’s surrendering time.” Simon removed the gauntlet and threw it onto the ground before placing his hands on his head and kneeling on the blood-soaked earth.

“No,” I said and ran at him.

He tried to move, but it was too late. I kicked him hard enough in the chest to dump him on his back. He tried to push me away, to get distance between us, but I locked his elbow tight and broke his wrist before snapping his arm. I wrapped air around my fists and kept on punching him, over and over again, tearing his face apart from the impact from each blow.

I dragged him to his feet and smashed his face into the nearest tree, punching him in the kidneys, and he cried out through ruined lips. A hand against his ribs created enough pressure to crush the bones, and when he tried to move away, I snapped his knee for good measure.

Every time he tried to move or get away, I broke a bone. I was more than ready to beat him to death, but I wanted him to suffer, to feel some measure of the pain he’d inflicted on so many.

“Nate,” someone behind me said, and I felt arms around my waist, dragging me away from Simon. I pulled my head forward and shot back, bringing the back of my skull against their nose. They released their grip and I dove on Simon, who was trying to crawl away, kicking and punching him with a rage that didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t until more hands grabbed me, that I finally calmed down and allowed myself to be removed. I noticed that the man I’d head butted was Bill, who was holding his now bleeding nose. A ping of guilt went through me.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” I said.

He waved my apology away. “Don’t grab you when you’re in the middle of killing someone, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Galahad appeared in front of me and motioned for someone to see to Bill.

“He killed so many people,” I said. “Innocent people.
Children
.”

“I know. But we need him alive.”

“Fuck you, Galahad. He deserves to die like a fucking ra
bid dog.”

“Yes, he does, but it’s not about what he deserves. It’s not about what any of these people deserve. It’s about what’s best for my people. And his brain if full of information that we need.”

“How’d he escape?”

“One of the men I sent to interrogate him was working against me. Simon used him to get free and then killed him.”

“Good, saves me the job.”

“You son-of-a-bitch!” Rean screamed at Galahad as his hands were freed and he fell forward, holding the lifeless body of his mate against him. “I did everything you asked.”

“Rean, not now,” Galahad said softly.

“Go to hell,” Rean snarled, his bloody and beaten appearance made him look even more enraged. “When my son found those men, I told you what happened. You told me you’d protect my family. You promised.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Fuck you and your apologies. They’re dead and it’s you
r fault.”

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Shadow Falls business,” Galahad snapped and someone tried to drag Rean away, but I put myself between him and the wood troll.

“Anyone touches Rean until he says his piece answers to me. After what I just did to that puddle of crap on the floor, is there anyone here who wants to see what else I can do?”

No one moved.

“My son found the body of that girl,” Rean said to me. “He tracked Simon and his men down to that house. So I went to Galahad and told him. He told me that if I took you there, if I got you inside the house, he could make sure my clan remained safe from Simon and his people.”

“That’s why you betrayed us?” I asked.

“I’m sorry about that, it was the quickest way to get you in. And Galahad told me I was to mention nothing about it to you. So once you were in the house I got Galahad here to oversee the arrest.” Rean laid his wife’s head back onto the ground and rounded on Galahad. “You promised me they’d be safe.”

“I did all I could. I had no idea the mayor was going to help Simon escape.”

“But you knew that some people in this town were
working
against you. Surely the mayor must have been on your list?” I snapped.

“He was but we assumed
…
I assumed there was time.”

“Did you know Rean planned for me and Bill to be taken by
Simon?”

“It was my idea, yes,” Galahad said. “I knew you’d make it out. I just needed you to subdue Simon and his people.”

“Rean, I’m sorry for your colony,” I said without taking my eyes off Galahad.

“We found some survivors,” one of Galahad’s men said as he entered the clearing.

Rean dragged himself upright and walked toward the newcomer, stopping by Galahad to wipe his wife’s blood on the clean white shirt of the king. “Her blood is your fault,” the wood troll said before refusing help and leaving the clearing.

Galahad glanced down at the blood and closed his eyes.

“The mayor is responsible for this?” I asked.

Galahad nodded. “He works for the old king. We have eyewitness accounts of the mayor meeting with Simon once he left the police station.”

Simon was having a sorcerer’s band—a small bracelet that was designed to negate the abilities of the wearer—placed on him. He’d still be able to heal quicker than a human, but his alchemy would be lost to him while he wore it. Simon smiled, showing missing teeth, and spat blood onto the leaves around him.

“If I ever see him again, he dies,” I told Galahad, who nodded. “And me and you are going to have a conversation about your lies and using me to get to Simon. But it’ll be later, when my anger no longer blinds my judgment.”

I walked passed Galahad to the edge of the clearing.

“Where are you going?” Galahad called after me.

“I’m going to go and make sure you have no further
problems
in this town.”

CHAPTER
17

En Route to Washington, D.C. Now.

F
elicia arranged everything exactly as she said she would, and once Caitlin and I arrived at the airport in New York, we were quickly placed on Felicia’s Learjet and soon in the sky.

Caitlin managed to fall asleep almost immediately, leaving me to make a phone call to try and pre-empt what I was going to have to do once we’d landed. I managed to get a hold of his assistant and spent several minutes trying to convince her to give my contact a message for me, something it was clear she was less than interested in doing.

“Just tell him Nathan Garrett called,” I told her eventually. “Tell him I’ll meet him at the Lincoln Memorial at noon.”

She told me she would and hung up.

Before I could curse her silently for being a miserable pain in the ass, my phone rang again. “Sky,” I said.

“Nate, I figured you’d be missing me. How goes Maine?”

I told her about the cave troll and werelions.

“You don’t get involved in half-assed shit, do you? Would it be possible for you to go somewhere and not have things try t
o kill you?”

“What’s the point in that? Life would be all boring and
stagnant
.”

“Well, if it helps, I have some
information that may tell you
why
people are trying to kill you.”

“Thanks, so what did you find?”

“We were searching Bill’s house and found a safe. It took a while, but we finally managed to get it open without destroying what was inside.”

Sky very quickly had every ounce of my attention. I didn’t even notice my nerves at flying. “What did you find?”

“Files. Eleven of them. Each of them is a missing person from around the country. All of them, six men and five women, vanished without a trace in the past three years. Three have officially gone missing from Stratford in the last few weeks. There are police reports for each of them. No signs of a
struggle
, all three were well liked and respected. Three hikers were killed a few days ago too and the other five are from all over the place.”

“Anything else?”

“He left notes detailing what he believed was a link between these murders and disappearances and what happened in Maine in 1977. The older victims were all people who escaped the house with you and Bill. That information isn’t in any of the files though, he wrote it separately himself. There are also three more files with names—Patricia, Joshua, and Bianca. There are grainy CCTV images of them, but nothing else. He must have thought they were the killers.”

“Send me everything you have. I’ll ask Caitlin when she wakes up; maybe she’s seen their pictures before. The names of the victims who escaped were left out of any police reports. No one but people who were around at the time would know that they’re linked, but we still don’t know what they’re
killing
for
.”

“There could be more bodies. The fact that none of the recent victims have been found tends to make me believe they were very good at making people stay gone.”

I flashed back to the cave troll and piles of bones. “I found them,” I said. “I’m pretty certain that they were taken to Stratford and fed to a cave troll.”

“Oh, shit,” Sky almost whispered. “That would explain not being able to find them. But why take people across country just to feed them to a monster?”

“No idea, and oddly enough the hikers weren’t fed to anything. They were found mauled to death. I’m on my way to
Washington
to see if I can find out more about the werelion prides in the area.
The werelions in Stratford are Barbary lions. That can’t be too common.”

“Well, they probably are in some parts, but it’s doubtful that Maine is an overly large source of extinct lions.”

“Of those victims, any of them have tattoos?”

I waited while she flicked through something, the sound of paper rustling in my ear. “Six. Although no more details than that. Why?”

“Simon was murdering people and removing their tattoos back in the seventies. No one ever found out why he was doing it, but it must have been important.”

“You could go ask Simon himself.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea at the moment. Although it may well turn into one if this trip doesn’t prove fruitful.”

“You think Simon’s old friends are killing again?”

“I think someone who knows him is finishing off his dirty work. No idea what they’re doing, though. They’re not killing randomly, and they’re being very quiet about it. But other than that, I’ve got nothing to go on.”

“I’m still looking into who might have been helping these people get your phone number. We checked into the dead cop, Jerry, and he had some large deposits in his bank account, but he had no way of getting hold of your phone number. Dad’s not exactly thrilled about a breach of security, so I’m trying to hold him off from hoisting everyone into the air by their ankles until they say something. He’s already moved on from thumbscrews, so I think the staff are safe for another day.”

“How’s your mum doing?”

“Angry. Probably angrier than Dad. Dad expects this shit once in a while, but Mom treats everyone like family. So to her, this is a huge betrayal. She wanted Dad to drag Jerry’s spirit back from wherever it is so he can question him. Dad refused, saying it was like searching for a needle in a country-size needle stack. Mom didn’t exactly take his sarcasm well. I believe he’s sleeping in the den. Or the floor. Whichever she decided was going to be the least comfortable.”

Persephone had a mean temper when someone angered her. And she held a grudge for just long enough to be able to gain some measure of revenge at some point. She wasn’t cruel or
vindictive
, but she could be a very dangerous adversary when she’d been offended. As Hades knew all too well.

I told Sky to give her family my best and she said she’d stay in touch.

Caitlin woke just as I ended the call. She rubbed her eyes and stretched. “Did you miss me?” she asked.

“I kept busy,” I said and explained about the phone calls.

“So, who is this mystery person we’re
…
sorry, you’re
meeting
.”

“A four-star general by the name of Roberto Cortez.”

“Why is he so important to what’s happening?”

“For years the werelions and werewolves were at war with one another. It was mostly a cold war; occasionally there were skirmishes, but nothing of huge note. That changed a thousand years ago. No one is really sure what started it—whether it was wolves killing lions or lions killing wolves, but it changed everything into a full-blown conflict. There were plenty of attempts at solving it, at trying to make peace, but nothing ever took for more than a few months. Eventually peace was reached, but it was decided that someone had to figure out exactly how many lions and wolves there were. Roberto got to personally track every single werelion in North America. If anyone can tell us who they might be, or who turned them originally, it’s Roberto.”

“What if this lion isn’t originally from here?”

“Then we’re going to have to try a different tactic, but I’m hoping he has an idea of who might have turned them. From there we could find out who they are.”

“But if he gets found out?”

“By asking for his help, I’m sort of breaking a few rules. I should go through proper channels, but that would take too long.”

“Will he do it?”

“Depends on whether he still considers owing me.”

I used my phone to open the email I’d been sent and downloaded the file. I passed Caitlin my phone and she flicked through the various documents. “Bill Moon had files on these people?”

“These are the victims from across the country.”

I took my phone back and downloaded the information about the three potential killers. “What about these three?”

“Not sure,” she said a little quicker than I’d expected. “We don’t have any images of the killers, so these are possibilities.”

“The names Patricia, Bianca or Joshua mean anything
to you?”

“No.”

I told her my theory about them being dragged across the country to kill in Maine.

“That’s a lot of extra work,” she said when I’d finished. “
Dangerous,
too.”

“I don’t suppose that when Bill spoke to you he mentioned anything about the survivors of what happened in ’77? I’m not great at recognizing faces.” I flicked through the pictures on my phone. “Some of these people look familiar, if a lot older than I remember. I’d guess that they were the ’77 survivors.”

“He said there were no files, that most of them moved away from the town. But no one kept tabs on them, so I can’t tell you if those people were the survivors of back then.”

“Can you check if a Glen or Fern live in town? They’re the only two names I remember who aren’t in these files.”

She made a quick phone call and relayed the information. “There’s no one in town by those names,” she said, sounding deflated. “You think those lions got to them?”

“No idea. There could be more missing people, there were a lot of bones in that cave. But that leaves the question of why allow the hikers to be found? Did any of them have markings, tattoos on them?”

“Big chunks of their flesh were missing—it’s possible they had tattoos, but there wasn’t enough of them to find out. As for why they were left to be discovered, maybe someone interrupted them.”

“Hopefully we’ll get answers. Didn’t you say your dad works in D.C.?”

“Yeah, I did. Although, I’m not exactly relishing the fact of meeting him.”

“You two don’t get on?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just ever since my mom and brother vanished, he’s always been distant toward me.” Caitlin was quiet for a moment. “I’m not saying he doesn’t love me, or that he was mean or anything like that. It’s just we grew apart. He threw himself into his work and whenever I see him there’s usually an argument about one case or another I’m working on. He says I get too close to things, that I should back off. Doesn’t matter what the case is, I’m always too close according to him. Okay, that must sound nuts.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I don’t know who my dad is. Nor my mum, for that matter. I grew up in Camelot and the closest thing I had to a father was probably Merlin, although that changed when he decided to start training me. Then I was his pupil and nothing more. I always got the impression there were things he wanted to tell me, but after a while that vanished and I never knew if there really was something or if it were all in my mind.”

“So, do you ever wonder about who your parents really are?”

I opened my mouth to say that it wasn’t something I dwelled on anymore, that it had been a long time since I’d even thought about it, but the captain announced that we’d soon be landing.

“Another time,” I told her as the jet made its final approach toward a city containing both unbridled power and corruption.